This page explains a conceptual relationship between two poles within Shahrur’s thought, and how this relationship functions in the construction of meaning.
Within a Broader Family
This relationship falls within the conception of the civil state as a state of law and citizenship, not a body of prohibition. Its witness highlights a specific aspect, while the family brings together pluralism, freedom of opinion, obedience to the law, and separation of powers.
Meaning of the Relationship
This relationship indicates that the civil state performs a protective function for freedom of opinion; that is, it is the political framework that safeguards this right and prevents it from being violated or subjected to the authority of despotism. This implication rests on the fact that the desired state is not founded on political sanctity or monism, but on pluralism and the separation of the individual religious sphere from state authority, and on the fact that freedom of opinion is considered part of the civil state itself.
The Two Poles of the Relationship
- First pole: the civil state
- Relation: protects
- Second pole: freedom of opinion
Evidence
- The State and Society via freedom of opinion is part of the civil state
- Witness: - Shahrur presents a theoretical introduction to the book The State and Society based on the idea that social and political history is governed by the binary of monism and pluralism, and that pluralism is associated with development and freedom, whereas monism is associated with backwardness and ruin.
- The author links the law of the transformation of social becoming to the construction of the civil state; the desired state is not based on despotism or political sanctity, but on pluralism, freedom of opinion, and the separation of the individual religious sphere from state authority.
Its Effect on the Knowledge Map
This relationship acquires importance because it links the structure of the state to a fundamental value in the public sphere, namely freedom of opinion, thereby placing the civil state in the position of guarantor of the conditions for social and political development. It also shows that pluralism is not an isolated idea, but a central element in understanding both the state and society, because the protection of opinion is tied to opposition to despotism and to the transition from monism to pluralism, which makes this relationship a central axis in the conceptual map of the text.